Published Monday, Sept. 28.
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
On Oct. 5, a week from today, ballots for the November election will hit the mail. The city has put Measure J on the ballot, which asks people to raise the sales tax by a half cent to pay for improvements to Cubberley.
City Council has agreed to use $65 million of the money to buy seven acres of the Cubberley Community Center campus from the Palo Alto Unified School District.
A bank wouldn’t loan anyone $65 million to buy a piece of property without an appraisal.
For months, this newspaper has been asking for the appraisal so the public can judge whether $65 million is a fair price.
City Council has stubbornly refused to release the appraisal. And it doesn’t look like they’re going to release it before the election. There’s nothing about it on the agendas for the meetings tonight or on Oct. 5.
Without the appraisal, it’s difficult for voters to make an intelligent choice on Measure J.
Measure J has other flaws — such as no sunset date on the tax and deceptive wording on the ballot statement. But denying the public basic information like the appraisal is enough of a reason to vote “no.”
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
The whole idea that the city should pay PAUSD for the Cubberley site is ridiculous on the face of it. The same taxpayers finance the city and the school district so paying for Cubberley is just transferring money from one pot to another paid for by the same people and of course the extra money from the city will be wasted by the school district giving out raises that are far in excess of inflation, paying for losing lawsuits, buying out failed administrators and sponsoring field trips to listen to advocates for terrorism.